Currently, people might own several consumer electronics devices such as PCs, smart phones, audio/video players and other portable devices. Content provided by content providers, such as music provided by an on-line music provider, can be shared on these devices via a “domain” built among them. The domain usually has a domain manager that is responsible for various domain operations, such as security authentication requests (logging in, checking permissions, etc.), maintaining and enforcing the domain policy. And it uses much domain management information for managing the domain, for example the list of member devices, the domain policy, and domain secrets such as private keys of the domain manager, root certificate and pin code of the domain.
The domain management information should be maintained. For example, the domain manager might be replaced because, for example, the device bearing the domain manager is lost or damaged, and the new domain manager should acquire domain management information to manage the domain. Taking domain secrets as an example, traditionally, the new domain manager determines new domain secrets, such as the public keys and the private keys, and rebuilds the domain management message. This is not a highly efficient scheme, because it cannot make good use of the previous domain management information. According to a solution proposed by US2008/0052388A1, the previous domain manager stored the domain management information in a domain authority of the domain, such as the authorizing server of the content provider, so that the new domain manager can retrieve domain management information from the domain authority.